Telco attributes decision to plans to evolve its own customer loyalty offering
Optus has attributed its decision pulled out of its partnership with Qantas’ Frequent Flyer program to plans to evolve its own customer loyalty offering.
The telco announced today that it would not renew the agreement from 30 June after a three-and-a-half year partnership. The deal allows Optus consumer and SMB customers to earn Qantas points when paying bills.
In a statement, Optus’ newly appointed managing director of marketing and product and former head of customer for the consumer division, Vicki Brady, said the telco is looking to make a number of changes to its customer loyalty program.
“We know that our customers value different things, so we’re working on the best way to bring our rewards to life in a way that makes sense for them,” she said. “We thank our customers for their loyalty and will continue the Optus Movie Rewards Program.”
According to Qantas Loyalty CEO, Lesley Grant, the pair had enjoyed a great working relationship. She pointed to the program’s longstanding record of adding new partners, and indicated this would continue in coming months.
“While we have an extremely low turnover rate of partners, it’s to be expected that from time to time there will be partners that move in and out of the program,” Grant said.
The Qantas Frequent Flyer program currently offers 2500 ways for members to earn points outside of flying and has introduced a raft of new offerings in the past 18 months, including an ecommerce portal for customers to purchase a range of third-party products, the Qantas Cash pre-paid travel card, and the new Acquire loyalty club for SMBs and Golf Club.
At last month’s Ad:Tech conference, Qantas CMO, Stephanie Tully, said a “coalition loyalty business” is the driving force behind the high engagement of Frequent Flyers.
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO Australia conversation on LinkedIn: CMO Australia, join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia, or check us out on Google+: google.com/+CmoAu
In the third and final episode of our 3-part CMO50 video series exploring modern marketing and why it’s become a matter of trust, we’re delighted to be joined by Telstra’s former CMO and now digital services and sales executive, Jeremy Nicholas, and Adobe VP Marketing Asia-Pacific and Japan, Duncan Egan.
Flash back to the classic film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Television-obsessed Mike insists on becoming the first person to be ‘sent by Wonkavision’, dematerialising on one end, pixel by pixel, and materialising in another space. His cinematic dreams are realised thanks to rash decisions as he is shrunken down to fit the digital universe, followed by a trip to the taffy puller to return to normal size.
Why is it there is no shortage of leadership development materials, yet outstanding leadership is so rare? Despite having access to so many leadership principles, tools, systems and processes, why is it so hard to develop and improve as a leader?
As a nation united by sport, brands are beginning to learn money alone won’t talk without aligned values and action. If recent events with major leagues and their players have shown us anything, it’s the next generation of athletes are standing by what they believe in – and they won’t let their values be superseded by money.
